Site-targeted ads have been an abysmal failure for me, in part because the CPM model is too expensive (with 0.25 minimum) but also I think it misses out on the fine-grained targeting of the adwords/adsense magic: page /x/a.html can be significantly better than /x/b.html. Not only is site-targeting incapable of discriminating, but keyword-targeting discriminates automatically. But once in a while I come upon a site that performs significantly better than others, with an IPC (income-per-click) many times CPC (cost-per-click). I would like to be able to say: "Whenever this ad appears on ZZZ.COM/YYY pay them DOUBLE." Of course, the googloids will rush to say with full hearts "Make ye a site-targeted campaign!" The problem is: I don't want to slather the entire ZZZ.COM domain with ads, I just want the ads already appearing there to have higher showing. I just want to be able to throw money at a good thing. And I'm tired of manually cloning campaigns and ad groups to simulate this feature. I could do it much more if I could assign a site-premium to any ad or ad group. What do you think? -- Bob Stein, VisiBone
I think that you hit the nail on the head as far as where the limit in quality of PPC advertising is. PPC is essentially for the lazy man, who doesn't want, or like most of us just doesn't have the time, to go out and partner with individual sites. It provides mediocre results, but does so quickly, efficiently, and across a potentially huge chunk of the internet. It does sound like what you are finding is a great way to identify other sites that could provide a good return if you do partner with them directly. If everyone used adwords to identify sites that actually do bring them revenue, they could then partner directly knowing that they are going to get a positive return. As far as site targeting, it is completely hit and miss in my experience. Some sites provide good visitors, while others that are almost identical are useless. Anyway, welcome to the forum. I use a VisaBona color chart daily, keep up the great products.
I have not had any luck w/ Site Targeting yet. I use it more for branding (w/ image ads) on very niche sites related to my site.